We are spending the summer preaching through Galatians and Colossians. I have always found Paul complicated and challenging to preach - this sermon was no exception. Eugene Peterson's book on Galatians, Traveling Light: modern Meditations on St. Paul's Letter of Freedom, has been very helpful so far (thanks to Dennis Piermont for suggesting the book to me).
I found it the section on "faith in Christ" or "faith of Christ" to be really interesting and important (see why Paul is so challenging to preach - a whole section of the sermon was on which preposition to use). I would readily go with the "faith of Christ" argument, except that all the recent translations have opted for "faith in Christ," despite the persuasive arguments I have seen for the "faith of Christ" translation.
“What’s Really Important” June 30, 2019; SAPC, Denton; Galatians 2: 1-10; 15-21 Richard B. Culp
2: 15-21: We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is justified[d] not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.[e] And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ,[f] and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. 17 But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,[g] who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification[h] comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
Introduction: It is tough being a church.
It probably should not be, but we make it difficult.
When I arrived in Mt. Sterling, KY, at my first installed call, I discovered the Montgomery County Ministerial Association. A very active group in the community.
I think one of the reasons it played such a prominent role was the presence of several long-term pastors - the Presbyterian ministers might come and go, but these pastors stayed for a lifetime.
One of the ministers who had been in the country for a long time had started two different churches, both of which were still in existence. Seemed sort of odd to me, so I asked him about it.
Here is the story he told me.
He had started a church. things were going well. Growing. then, he went to the doctor and they found a tumor on an x-ray. A pretty big tumor. Expected to find cancer. Probably would be one of those bad diagnoses.
He made his appointment to see the oncological surgeon. he was pretty sick. he invited the elders of the church to come and anoint him and lay on hands in the days before his appointment. they did. he went to see the doctor. No sign of a tumor.
He preached and proclaimed about the miracle of his healing. about the power fo laying on of hands and anointing. he became much more engaged in spirit language and how church members ought to be more spirit-filled and participate in more miracles in their midst.
Some of the congregants joined him in his new, Spirit-oriented approach to what the church should be doing.
Others resisted. too pentecostal. too much about they should be doing miracles. So the church split. The minister left with some of the members and started another church. the others stayed in the old church.
A final note - I told the story to a Sunday school class at a Presbyterian church (most of them knew at least bits and pieces of the story). when I asked for their thoughts, my doctor, a lifelong Presbyterian, quickly responded: “Well, I’d like see the first x-ray to make sure it was read correctly before I announced a miracle from the second x-ray!” You gotta love those rational Presbyterians!
It is tough being a church. It probably should not be, but….
Paul knows it is tough being a church. That is the context in which he was writing to the Galatians.
They were trying to figure out how to be a church, both in their local community and how to be connected to those other communities of faith to which they are connected by their belief in Jesus Christ.
Paul has some really good news for the Galatians. They have this new found freedom in Christ. Eugene Peterson, best known perhaps for his Message translation of the Bible, considers freedom to be the key theme in Galatians.
Freed from sin; freed from the law; freed from the power of death.
Being freed sounds like a pretty good place to start a church and to find common ground.
But, soon they re asking questions and making rules about being free: is the freedom Jesus brings only for Jews, or is it for Gentiles as well? Are they freed from the historic dietary restrictions? Are they freed from having to be circumcised?
Disagreement abounds. In fact, we heard Paul in his letter write warn about the “false believers[a] secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us” (Galatians 2:4)
It is tough being the church.
But let’s take a look at some of what seems to really matters to Paul as ee writes about being the church.
Move 2: First of all, Paul is all about community.
a. there is a temptation when reading Paul’s letters to individualize them.
1. That is, when we read about being justified or about righteousness, we want to make it about ourself.
2. Part of that, I suppose is because he uses the first-person a lot.
3. When he writes, “We,” that gets interpreted by the reader as “me.” wE know “we” is plural, but we claim it in the first-person, which means “me” personally.
4. Part of it is probably the individualistic approach we have to life and faith.
b. For Paul, all he writes and teaches about faith and theology is communal.
1. As Helmut Koester, who was a New Testament professor at Harvard Divinity school noted, “Paul's God is "not interested in righteous individuals," but wants "to create righteousness and justice for people, communities, and for nations. (Jaime Clark-Soles Professor of New Testament, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=603, quoting Helmut Koester)
2. What God has done in Christ is not anyone’s personal property - God has acted on behalf of all God’s people.
c. In some ways, that reminder should help us be better t being community.
1. the question is not whether those other people meet our expectations or our rules.
2. Instead, the question is how can we build on the common ground we have with those others, who also have been made righteous by Christ.
As we read through Paul’s letters, we are reminded that what really matters is community.
Move 3: Secondly, go back this afternoon and reread vs. 16: yet we know that a person is justified[d] not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
a. As you read it, you will be entering into one of the great debates surrounding Paul’s letter.
1. Should it read “through faith IN Christ,” to “through the faith OF Christ.”
2. One little preposition has led to generations of debate and study.
3. seems like a minor issue, but there is a lot at stake.
4. Faith in Christ, can mean believing something about Christ. It puts the action on the person.
5. Faith of Christ puts the action on Christ.
b. The NRSV, NIV, NKJ all choose “faith in Christ.”
1. the earliest translations from the Greek chose “faith of Christ” (see the following article for an fuller explanation of the translation argument: Alicia Vargas
Dean for Academic Affairs, Assoc. Professor of Multicultural and Contextual Studies
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
Berkeley, Calif.; http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2872; or go to Martinus C de Boer’s commentary on Galatians, 148ff)
2. The King James Version chose “faith of Christ.”
3. While I am inclined to trust modern scholarship, I believe the alternative translation of “faith of Christ” ought to help us understand what it means when we say, “Faith in Christ.”
c. If faith in Christ means the freedom God gives to us just becomes a set of rules or beliefs someone must have to be made righteous or be justified, we take that freedom and make it something less than freedom.
1. It becomes very easy to create the rules for who is in or who is out.
2. It seems to me that if we understand “faith in Christ” to be faith in the one who came and lived faithfully, who came and gave himself over for us, who came to free us, and if we can resist the temptation to quickly make rules about what “faith in christ” means, we will find ourselves at the place where Christ calls us, regardless of how we translate that important phrase.
What really matters is what Christ has done for us.
Move 4: Finally, notice how Paul finishes the first section of Chapter - he has been noting the differences he has and discussing how they dealt with them, and then we writes in vs. 10 They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was[b] eager to do.
a. the common ground that superseded all the differences - remember the poor.
1. As Eugene Peterson notes in his book on Galatians: “Our attitude toward the poor is still one of the surest tests of the health of our freedom. The moment freedom is used to avoid acts of mercy or help or compassion, it is exposed as a fraud. A free person who finds ways to enhance the lives of the poor demonstrates the truest and most mature freedom. A free person who diminishes the lives of the poor by dealing out ridicule or withholding gifts is himself diminished, is herself diminished” (Eugene Peterson, Traveling Light: Modern Meditations on St. Paul’s Letter of Freedom, 1988, Helmers and Howard, Colorado Springs, 66).
2. I read recently about a church in Indiana. It is a mega-church; ten campuses and 10K attending each Sunday; their theology did not seem in keeping with what we might espouse here at St. Andrew.
3. But, listen to what this church did recently. apparently, once a quarter they ask their congregants to give $1 to a special mission project. This time, they wanted to do something bigger, so they asked for $3 for the special mission project. they raised $30,000. Then, they joined forces with a company that buys debt from hospitals and parlayed their $30,000 into $4 million of debt forgiveness for people in the hospitals in the areas served by their churches. no big deal is made - the people whose medical debt is forgiven will receive a letter saying their debt to the hospital has been paid (“This church will pay off about $4 million in medical debt in its community. Here's how it happened,”
article by Leah Asmelash and Saeed Ahmed; https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/health/church-medical-debt-trnd/index.html)
4. Wow!
b. We may not have much in common with this mega-church, but I hope we have the desire to remember the poor like they do. Amen.
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